Potemkin village P Potemkin village Potemkin villages were purportedly fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigory Potyomkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potyomkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress' eyes. General Potemkin villages Modern historians are divided on the degree of truth behind Potemkin villages. While tales of the fake villages are generally considered exaggerations, some historians dismiss them as malicious rumors spread by Potyomkin's opponents. These historians argue that Potyomkin did mount efforts to develop the Crimea and probably directed peasants to spruce up the riverfront in advance of the Empress's arrival. According to Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Potyomkin's most comprehensive English-language biographer, the tale of elaborate, fake settlements with glowing fires designed to comfort the monarch and her entourage as they surveyed the barren territory at night, is largely fictional.

Some Russian historians hold a somewhat different view. Aleksandr Panchenko, an authoritative specialist on 19th century Russia, used original correspondence and memoirs to conclude that the myth of the Potemkin village has a basis in reality: "Potemkin really did build mock towns and villages, but he never denied that they were theatrical sets." Panchenko writes that "Potemkin's goal was to demonstrate that this vast region was already practically civilized, or was at least energetically becoming civilized," by showing a vision of what the area would become, using screens on which villages were painted and driving flocks of sheep each night to the next stop along the route. Also, the close relationship between Field Marshal Potyomkin and Empress Catherine made it likely that she was aware of the fictitious nature of the villages. Thus, the deception would have been mainly directed towards the foreign ambassadors accompanying the imperial party. Regardless, Potyomkin had in fact directed the building of fortresses , ships of the line , and thriving settlements, and the tour – which saw real and significant accomplishments – solidified his power.

So, while "Potemkin village" has come to mean, especially in a political context, any hollow or false construct, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation, the phrase may not apply to its original context. Modern Uses "Potemkin village" has also frequently been used to describe the attempts of the Soviet government to fool foreign visitors. The government would take such visitors, who were often already sympathetic to socialism or communism, to select villages, factories, schools, stores, or neighborhoods and present them as if they were typical, rather than exceptional. Given the strict limitations on the movement of foreigners in the USSR, it was often impossible for these visitors to see any other examples. "Potemkin village" has also been used to describe states and cities whose low tax régimes allow international companies to base their headquarters there, but to conduct their real businesses elsewhere. Examples of Potemkin villages The Nazi German Theresienstadt concentration camp, called "the Paradise Ghetto" in World War II , was designed as a concentration camp that could be shown to the Red Cross , but was really a Potemkin village: attractive at first, but deceptive and ultimately lethal, with high death rates from malnutrition and contagious diseases.

It ultimately served as a way-station to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Gijeong-dong, built by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) in the north half of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Following the Manchurian Incident, and China 's referral of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to the League of Nations in 1931, the League's representative was given a tour of the "truly Manchurian" parts of the region. It was meant to prove that the area was not under Japanese domination. Whether the farce succeeded or not is moot; Japan withdrew from the League the following year. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, an article in the London Evening Standard opined that "the entire host city has been turned into a kind of Potemkin Olympic village". Term used in legal system The term "Potemkin village" is also often used by judges , especially members of a multiple-judge panel who dissent from the majority's opinion on a particular matter, to describe an inaccurate or tortured interpretation and/or application of a particular legal doctrine to the specific facts at issue.

Use of the term is meant to imply that the reasons espoused by the panel's majority in support of its decision are not based on accurate or sound law, and their restrictive application is merely a masquerade for the court 's desire to avoid a difficult decision. Often, the dissent will attempt to reveal the majority's adherence to the restrictive principle at issue as being an inappropriate function for a court, reasoning that the decision transgresses the limits of traditional adjudication because the resolution of the case will effectively create an important and far-reaching policy decision, which the legislature would be the better equipped and more appropriate entity to address. For example, in the U.S. Supreme Court abortion case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey in 1992, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that "Roe v. Wade stands as a sort of judicial Potemkin Village, which may be pointed out to passers-by as a monument to the importance of adhering to precedent." Other uses Sometimes, instead of the full phrase, just "Potemkin" is used, as an adjective.

For example, the use of a row of trees to screen a clearcut area from highway drivers has been called a "Potemkin Forest". The term "Potemkin Court" implies that the court's reason to exist is being called into question; it differs from a kangaroo court in which the court's standard of justice is being impugned. Many of the newly constructed base areas at ski resorts are referred to as Potemkin Villages. These create the illusion of a quaint mountain town, but are actually carefully planned theme shopping centers, hotels and restaurants designed for maximum revenue. The term "Potemkin presidency" has been used variously to describe American presidents who have been seen to lack substance or ability despite accomplished presentation skills, including Ronald Regan, Bill Clinton and George W Bush. In fiction, The West Wing episode "Twenty Hours In America" (Season 4, Episode 1) had the character Josh Lyman quote president "Jed" Bartlet as saying "the challenge [of running the country] is too great for a Potemkin presidency..." Lyman also says in the episode "Freedonia" (Season 6, Episode 15) that his campaign staff should thank their "Potemkin advance team".

In the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Enron's trading floor, used to fool visiting analysts, is described as a "Potemkin Village". (Wikipedia) Potemkin village - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Potemkin village Jump to: navigation , search This article includes a list of references or external links , but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations . Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate . (January 2009) This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding reliable references (ideally, using inline citations ). Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (January 2009) Potemkin villages were purportedly fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign , had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress's eyes.

Contents 7 External links [ edit ] General Potemkin's villages There is a division among modern historians on the degree of truth behind Potemkin villages. While the tales of the fake villages are generally considered an exaggeration, some historians dismiss them as simply malicious rumors spread by Potemkin's opponents. These historians argue that Potemkin did mount efforts to develop the Crimea and probably directed peasants to spruce up the riverfront in advance of the Empress's arrival. For example, according to Montefiore, Potemkin's most comprehensive English-language biographer, the tale of elaborate, fake settlements with glowing fires designed to comfort the monarch and her entourage as they surveyed the barren territory at night, is largely fictional. [1] Some Russian historians have a somewhat different view.

Aleksandr Panchenko, an authoritative specialist on 19th century Russia, used original correspondence and memoirs to conclude that the myth of the Potemkin village has a basis in reality as "Potemkin really did build mock towns and villages, but he never denied that they were theatrical sets." [2] Panchenko writes that "Potemkin's goal was to demonstrate that this vast region was already practically civilized, or was at least energetically becoming civilized," by showing a vision of what the area would become including using screens on which villages were painted and driving flocks of sheep each night to the next stop along the route. [3] Alternatively, it has been suggested that the close relationship between Field Marshal Potemkin and Empress Catherine made it likely that she was aware of the fictitious nature of the villages. Thus, the deception would have been mainly directed towards the foreign ambassadors accompanying the imperial party. [4] Regardless, Potemkin had in fact directed the building of fortresses , ships of the line , and thriving settlements, and the tour – which saw real and significant accomplishments – solidified his power.

So, while "Potemkin village" has come to mean, especially in a political context, any hollow or false construct, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation, the phrase may not apply to its original context. [ edit ] Modern Uses "Potemkin village" has also frequently been used to describe the attempts of the Soviet government to fool foreign visitors. The government would take such visitors, who were often already sympathetic to socialism or communism, to select villages, factories, schools, stores, or neighborhoods and present them as if they were typical, rather than exceptional. Given the strict limitations on the movement of foreigners in the USSR, it was often impossible for these visitors to see any other examples. [5] . 'Potemkin Village' has also been used to describe states and cities whose low tax régimes allow international companies to base their headquarters there, but leave their real businesses elsewhere.

[6] [ edit ] Examples of Potemkin villages The Theresienstadt concentration camp , called "the Paradise Ghetto" in World War II , was designed as a concentration camp that could be shown to the Red Cross , but it was really a Potemkin village: attractive at first, but deceptive and ultimately lethal, with high death rates from malnutrition and contagious diseases, and it ultimately served as a way-station to Auschwitz-Birkenau . Gijeong-dong , Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( North Korea ) Following the Manchurian Incident , and China 's referral of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to the League of Nations in 1931, the League's representative was given a tour of the 'truly Manchurian' parts of the region. It was meant to prove that the area was not under Japanese domination. Whether the farce succeeded or not is moot; Japan withdrew from the League the following year.

[7] In his December 2007 essay in The New York Review of Books 54.19 ("A Moral Witness to the 'Intricate Machine'"), Avishai Margalit referred to many of Israel's settlements in the West Bank as "little more than Potemkin villages." It was said of Beijing in an article on 08/12/2008 in the Evening Standard in the United Kingdom, that "the entire host city has been turned into a kind of Potemkin Olympic village". [ edit ] Term used in legal system The term "Potemkin village" is also often used by judges , especially members of a multiple-judge panel who dissent from the majority's opinion on a particular matter, to describe an inaccurate or tortured interpretation and/or application of a particular legal doctrine to the specific facts at issue. Use of the term is meant to imply that the reasons espoused by the panel's majority in support of its decision are not based on accurate or sound law and their restrictive application is merely a masquerade for the court 's desire to avoid a difficult decision.

Often, the dissent will attempt to reveal the majority's adherence to the restrictive principle at issue as being an inappropriate function for a court, reasoning that the decision transgresses the limits of traditional adjudication because the resolution of the case will effectively create an important and far-reaching policy decision, which the legislature would be the better equipped and more appropriate entity to address. For example, in the U.S. Supreme Court abortion case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v Casey, 505 US 833, 966 (1992) then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that "Roe v Wade stands as a sort of judicial Potemkin Village, which may be pointed out to passers-by as a monument to the importance of adhering to precedent". [ edit ] Other uses Construction or not, motorists and pedestrians in Bothell, Washington can enjoy a forest view Sometimes, instead of the full phrase, just "Potemkin" is used, as an adjective.

For example, the use of a row of trees to screen a clearcut area from highway drivers has been called a "Potemkin Forest." The term "Potemkin Court" implies that the court's reason to exist is being called into question; it differs from a kangaroo court in which the court's standard of justice is being impugned. In 2009, when lawyers representing Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich withdrew their services, they stated a belief that his upcoming impeachment trial would be a "Potemkin-like lynching." The term is also used in politics and literature. Frank Rich's 2006 book, "The Greatest Story Ever Sold," likens the George W. Bush administration's efforts to create favorable news stories about the progress of the Iraq War, both in the United States and in Iraq, to a "Potemkin Village." Many of the newly constructed base areas at ski resorts are referred to as Potemkin Villages. These create the illusion of a quaint mountain town, but are actually carefully planned theme shopping centers, hotels and restaurants designed for maximum revenue.

In fiction, The West Wing Episode "Twenty Hours In America" (season 4, episode 1) had the Character Josh Lyman quote presidential contender Robert Ritchie as saying "the challenge [of running the country] is too great for a Potemkin presidency..." Potemkin village Interpretation Translation Potemkin village noun Etymology: Grigori Potëmkin, who supposedly built impressive fake villages along a route Catherine the Great was to travel Date: 1937 an impressive facade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition New Collegiate Dictionary. 2001. potence Look at other dictionaries: Potemkin village — Potemkin villages were purportedly fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potemkin, who led the… … Wikipedia Potemkin village — n.

[after POTEMKIN Grigori Aleksandrovich, who it is said built fake villages to deceive Catherine the Great about his accomplishments] a false front or facade … English World dictionary Potemkin village — noun something that seems impressive but in fact lacks substance • Hypernyms: ↑fake, ↑sham, ↑postiche * * * pəˈtem(p)kə̇n noun Usage: usually capitalized P Etymology: after Grigori A. Potemkin died 1791 Russ … Useful english dictionary Potemkin village — a pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition. Also, Potemkin Village.

[1935 40; after Prince POTËMKIN, who allegedly had villages of cardboard constructed for… … Universalium Potemkin village — noun Any false construct devised to disguise a shortcoming or improve appearances … Wiktionary Potemkin — can refer to:;People * Prince Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin, statesman and lover of Catherine the Great * Pavel Potemkin, a Russian diplomat and military leader, cousin of Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin * Pyotr Potemkin, a Russian diplomat and … Wikipedia Potemkin City Limits — Infobox Album | Name = Potemkin City Limits Type = Album Artist = Propagandhi Released = October 18, 2005 Recorded = November 8, 2004 ? Genre = Punk rock Length = 41:25 Label = G7 Welcoming Committee Records/Fat Wreck Chords Producer = Reviews =… … Wikipedia Potemkin, Grigory Aleksandrovich, Prince Tavrichesky, Imperial Prince — ▪ Russian statesman born Sept. 13 [Sept.

24, New Style], 1739, Chizovo, Russia died Oct. 5 [Oct. 16], 1791, near Iaşi [now in Romania] Russian army officer and statesman, for two years Empress Catherine II s (Catherine II) lover and for 17 years … Universalium Potemkin (architecture) — Potemkin is a steel made architectural park by Casagrande Rintala for Kuramata village in Japan 2003. A steel made mix between a temple and machine. [ [ Tamkang University: 卡馬可 Marco Casagrande… … Wikipedia Po|tem|kin Village — «poh TEHM kihn», a false facade intended to cover up a bad situation or activity: »The Party s myth of a bright future might seem to Russian poets like the biggest Potemkin Village of them all (New Yorker).

╂[&LT; Prince Grigori Potemkin, 1739… … Useful english dictionary 16+ Gates of Vienna: Potemkin Village Potemkin Village The last five days of horror in New Orleans and southern Mississippi have shown that the renowned infrastructure of America is not all that it should be. The jihadist zealots of Al Qaeda (not to mention the Chinese military) must be observing with great interest the events in Louisiana, noticing the logistical choke points of the American economy and how easy they are to take out. One can imagine the conversation around the big table during the Great Jihad Seminar in the Dar-al-Islam Conference Room of the Damascus Sheraton (loosely translated from the Arabic): Mahmud: I see an opportunity here — how about it, people? Gimme some ideas… Hassan: Well, if a hurricane can take out 25% of their refinery capacity, how about a suitcase nuke in Houston? My boys have a couple of ’em, and I’ve got the shaheeds to deliver them. Just give me the OK — Walid: Let’s think outside the box here. How much of their meat supply passes through Chicago? And how much botulinum can we deploy there?

Mahmud: I’ll get my Brooklyn think tank to crunch the numbers for us… Personal observation suggests how easy it would be to co-ordinate a few small explosions at selected pylons on several of the major northeastern high-tension power lines, thereby binging down a large part of the grid indefinitely. There are large tank farms for natural gas pipelines here in Central Virginia that would be easy to sabotage; after all, until the alert level rises to “orange”, they don’t even have coverage by the county deputies. You can be sure that anything we think of here has already been thought of by our enemies in Al Qaeda, and elaborated, and planned out, and trained for. Our infrastructure is vulnerable, and it’s easy for our enemies to see that. We are the most powerful nation that has ever existed, but we are brittle, and Hurricane Katrina only serves to remind us of this fact.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Wikipedia offers the following definition of “Potemkin Villages” : Potemkin villages were, purportedly, fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. Conventional wisdom has it that Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper river in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress's eyes. The term is now widely used to describe elaborate and superficial constructions designed to pass official inspection, but lacking any real substance (as an ironic footnote, Potemkin’s villages as described above never really existed; they were an urban legend arising out of malicious gossip circulated by his political enemies). If one wanted to describe the protective structures and emergency preparations in New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta region, “Potemkin Village” would certainly be the preferred term.

Corrupt government, huge bureaucracies jostling to get their snouts into the federal trough — write the grant, get the money, repay the favors, reward your relatives — but keep the city looking good, keep the casinos open and the tourists coming in, keep the pipelines open and the barges moving. And the levees? Well, they’ve worked all right so far… All across the country are aging bridges, deteriorating highways, decaying cities, and an antiquated power grid. Additional refining capacity can’t be built because it would be Bad For The Environment. Nuclear power is a no-no because of Demon Radiation. New roads are bad because they produce Evil Urban Sprawl. No swamp can be drained because of the Lesser Crested Loon. And everything depends on the Federal Government, the be-all and end-all, which is more powerful than God, which causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine, which is simultaneously the Protector and Nemesis of every man, woman, and child in the country, if not the whole world.

Remember the Tenth Postulate of PC : “There are no acts of God; there are only acts of Government.” This whole PC façade can only be propped up as long as the gatekeepers of the culture maintain the fictions. The success of the trompe l’œil depends on control of the flow of information. The mainstream media have up until now sutained the illusion that the PC village is one of attractive cottages, laughing children, and gamboling lambs, when in fact the brightly painted flats barely conceal the rude hovels and scabrous churls of the real village. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * All this is in the process of change now. In a recent post called Industry, Redundancy, and Coping with Hurricane Katrina , Indus Valley Rising considered the nasty problems brought to light by Hurricane Katrina: It looks like fully industrialized societies may not be much of an improvement over societies that have not fully industrialized. In engineering (mechanical, software, etc.), when critical services that other system services depend on are concentrated in a single component or single center or operation, if that component or service fails the rest of the system goes down with it.

That is called a “single point of failure.” Systems that have multiple failover mechanisms and redundant components are, however, considered more reliable because if one or more components go down, then the other redundant components for a time can assume the extra load. The system is strained, but it doesn’t go down. The cost of redundancy is high, but the cost of system failure is higher — even if it rarely happens. Like any other system that depends on highly specialized components but lacks redundancy, a highly industrialized society is similarly fragile because critical services become concentrated with a small number of people or agencies. If small but important social components fail on account of sabotage or disaster, the effect on the rest of society can be disproportionately catastrophic. America, which is known as “the bread basket of the world,” has an especially vulnerable food supply. The seeming benefit of the industrialized food supply is that it allows fewer people to produce considerably more food. America produces so much food that to keep food prices high enough, the government has to offer subsidies to farmers to not grow food or just dump grains in the ocean.

The down-side of America’s industrialized food supply is that, because food production is concentrated in the hands of a few (and we aren’t talking of storage systems that largely depend on the availability of transportation and electricity), the system has little scope for failover. This is true of many other essential components of society, but the food supply is perhaps the most obvious failure-prone component. The recent disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina has highlighted this fragility in the American social system… The environment, the economy, and the geopolitical situation are all changing, and with these changes the kind of society we build may affect our future chances of survival. If means of production, especially that of food, is a critical component of any social system, which will be the better long-term social strategy to implement: globalization with its potential for higher efficiency and higher profits but increased dependency on services and products from foreign lands, or localized production that is redundant and therefore more robust but less efficient and less profitable? A localized means of production might be better suited to withstanding environmental threats like the Hurricane Katrina disaster or, more increasingly, disasters that could be wreaked by foreign enemies. These are things for which we shouldn’t be caught unprepared.

Scaling down American commercial farm enterprises and encouraging small farmers who relied less on industrialized means of farming could be in the interest of America’s national security. Right now the chemical industry, the machinery industry, and food production are all tightly coupled. Loosening the couplings between these subsystems, which means making them less interdependent, would make for a more robust social system that could better withstand a catastrophe. Krishna Kirti has drawn attention to an important strategic issue here. But the solution — relying on large numbers of smaller production components in a loosely-linked network — need not require a retreat down the technological ladder. As I remarked in the comments on his post, I don’t think that small-scale and redundant farming and industry necessarily means primitive operations only. The high-tech revolution is just beginning to impact the economy at all levels, and one of the coming trends will be the efficient miniaturization of enterprise. With efficient use of information technology, the “economy of scale” rule will no longer be as significant as it used to be. Given the right equipment and software, an internet connection, and a robust power supply, small farms and manufacturing should be able to compete effectively with larger enterprises.

All this is predicated, of course, on their willingness to use modern methods (pesticides, fertilizer, etc.). Think of the innovation that has been going on constantly in the military: small dispersed munitions controlled by computers; jury-rigged networks of laptops used by technically savvy soldiers in moving humvees to track the enemy and share intelligence; tiny intelligent sensor devices scattered over the battlefield, each having its own IP address and each monitoring events around it… The information revolution is only just beginning, and its effects will be staggering. America has the natural advantage in this field, since the new paradigm requires non-hierarchical decentralized network structures, autonomous actors, and the ability to innovate. In other words: “fast, cheap and out of control,” according the meme invented by the MIT robot scientist Rodney Brooks. How many more 9-11s or Hurricane Katrinas will occur before we get serious about reorganizing the general infrastructure in America? A large part of the solution will be to recognize that a large part of the problem is the federal government. And ideally we would reach a point where the only strategic failure to be feared would be the collapse of the internet.

Potemkin village : Map (The Full Wiki) The Full Wiki Map showing all locations mentioned on Wikipedia article: Potemkin villages were purportedly fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigory Potyomkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potyomkin, who led the Crimean military campaign , had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress' eyes. General Potemkin villages Modern historians are divided on the degree of truth behind Potemkin villages. While tales of the fake villages are generally considered exaggerations, some historians dismiss them as malicious rumors spread by Potyomkin's opponents. These historians argue that Potyomkin did mount efforts to develop the Crimea and probably directed peasants to spruce up the riverfront in advance of the Empress's arrival.

According to Simon Sebag-Montefiore , Potyomkin's most comprehensive English-language biographer, the tale of elaborate, fake settlements with glowing fires designed to comfort the monarch and her entourage as they surveyed the barren territory at night, is largely fictional. Some Russian historians hold a somewhat different view. Aleksandr Panchenko, an authoritative specialist on 19th century Russia, used original correspondence and memoirs to conclude that the myth of the Potemkin village has a basis in reality: "Potemkin really did build mock towns and villages, but he never denied that they were theatrical sets." Panchenko writes that "Potemkin's goal was to demonstrate that this vast region was already practically civilized, or was at least energetically becoming civilized," by showing a vision of what the area would become, using screens on which villages were painted and driving flocks of sheep each night to the next stop along the route. Also, the close relationship between Field Marshal Potyomkin and Empress Catherine made it likely that she was aware of the fictitious nature of the villages. Thus, the deception would have been mainly directed towards the foreign ambassadors accompanying the imperial party.

Regardless, Potyomkin had in fact directed the building of fortresses , ships of the line , and thriving settlements, and the tour – which saw real and significant accomplishments – solidified his power. So, while "Potemkin village" has come to mean, especially in a political context, any hollow or false construct, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation, the phrase may not apply to its original context. Modern Uses "Potemkin village" has also frequently been used to describe the attempts of the Soviet government to fool foreign visitors. The government would take such visitors, who were often already sympathetic to socialism or communism, to select villages, factories, schools, stores, or neighborhoods and present them as if they were typical, rather than exceptional. Given the strict limitations on the movement of foreigners in the USSR, it was often impossible for these visitors to see any other examples. "Potemkin village" has also been used to describe states and cities whose low tax régimes allow international companies to base their headquarters there, but to conduct their real businesses elsewhere.

Examples of Potemkin villages Following the Manchurian Incident , and China 's referral of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to the League of Nations in 1931, the League's representative was given a tour of the "truly Manchurian" parts of the region. It was meant to prove that the area was not under Japanese domination. Whether the farce succeeded or not is moot; Japan withdrew from the League the following year. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics , an article in the London Evening Standard opined that "the entire host city has been turned into a kind of Potemkin Olympic village". Term used in legal system The term "Potemkin village" is also often used by judges , especially members of a multiple-judge panel who dissent from the majority's opinion on a particular matter, to describe an inaccurate or tortured interpretation and/or application of a particular legal doctrine to the specific facts at issue. Use of the term is meant to imply that the reasons espoused by the panel's majority in support of its decision are not based on accurate or sound law, and their restrictive application is merely a masquerade for the court 's desire to avoid a difficult decision.

Often, the dissent will attempt to reveal the majority's adherence to the restrictive principle at issue as being an inappropriate function for a court, reasoning that the decision transgresses the limits of traditional adjudication because the resolution of the case will effectively create an important and far-reaching policy decision, which the legislature would be the better equipped and more appropriate entity to address. For example, in the U.S. Supreme Court abortion case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey in 1992, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that " Roe v. Wade stands as a sort of judicial Potemkin Village, which may be pointed out to passers-by as a monument to the importance of adhering to precedent." Other uses Sometimes, instead of the full phrase, just "Potemkin" is used, as an adjective. For example, the use of a row of trees to screen a clearcut area from highway drivers has been called a "Potemkin Forest". The term "Potemkin Court" implies that the court's reason to exist is being called into question; it differs from a kangaroo court in which the court's standard of justice is being impugned.

Many of the newly constructed base areas at ski resorts are referred to as Potemkin Villages. These create the illusion of a quaint mountain town, but are actually carefully planned theme shopping centers, hotels and restaurants designed for maximum revenue. The term "Potemkin presidency" has been used variously to describe American presidents who have been seen to lack substance or ability despite accomplished presentation skills, including Ronald Regan , Bill Clinton and George W Bush . In fiction, The West Wing episode "Twenty Hours In America" (Season 4, Episode 1) had the character Josh Lyman quote president "Jed" Bartlet as saying "the challenge [of running the country] is too great for a Potemkin presidency..." Lyman also says in the episode "Freedonia" (Season 6, Episode 15) that his campaign staff should thank their "Potemkin advance team". In the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room , Enron 's trading floor, used to fool visiting analysts, is described as a "Potemkin Village". See also What does Potemkin village mean?

This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word Potemkin village Wiktionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition: Potemkin village(Noun) Any false construct devised to disguise a shortcoming or improve appearances. Origin: Purportedly named for fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Alexsandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. Freebase(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition: Potemkin village The phrase Potemkin villages was originally used to describe a fake village, built only to impress. The phrase is now used, typically in politics and economics, to describe any construction built solely to deceive others into thinking that some situation is better than it really is. It is unclear whether the origin of the phrase is factual, an exaggeration, or a myth. According to the story, Russian minister Grigory Potemkin who led the Crimean military campaign erected fake settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787.

Numerology The numerical value of Potemkin village in Chaldean Numerology is: 4 Pythagorean Numerology Potemkin village : definition of Potemkin village and synonyms of Potemkin village (English) This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (January 2009) Potemkin villages or Potyomkin villages ( Russian : Потёмкинские деревни, Potyomkinskiye derevni) is an idiom based on an historical myth . According to the myth, there were fake settlements purportedly erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigory Potemkin in order to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign , had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her entourage with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress' eyes.

Contents 9 External links Historical Potemkin villages Modern historians are divided on the degree of truth behind Potemkin villages. While tales of the fake villages are generally considered exaggerations, some historians dismiss them as malicious rumor spread by Potemkin's opponents. These historians argue that Potemkin did mount efforts to develop the Crimea and probably directed peasants to spruce up the riverfront in advance of the Empress' arrival. According to Simon Sebag-Montefiore , Potemkin's most comprehensive English-language biographer, the tale of elaborate, fake settlements with glowing fires designed to comfort the monarch and her entourage as they surveyed the barren territory at night, is largely fictional. [1] Aleksandr Panchenko, an authoritative specialist on 19th century Russia, used original correspondence and memoirs to conclude that the Potemkin villages are a myth.

He writes: "Based on the above said we must conclude that the myth of "Potemkin villages" is exactly a myth, and not an established fact." [2] Panchenko writes that "Potyomkin indeed decorated cities and villages, but made no secret that this was a decoration." [3] Also, the close relationship between Potemkin and the Empress would make it difficult for him to deceive her. Thus, the deception would have been mainly directed towards the foreign ambassadors accompanying the imperial party. [4] Regardless, Potemkin had in fact directed the building of fortresses , ships of the line , and thriving settlements, and the tour – which saw real and significant accomplishments – solidified his power. So, even though "Potemkin village" has come to mean, especially in a political context, any hollow or false construct, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation, the phrase ironically cannot be applied accurately to its own original historical inspiration.

According to a legend, in 1787, when Catherine passed through Tula on her way back from the trip, the local governor, Mikhail Krechetnikov , indeed attempted a deception of that kind in order to hide the effects of a bad harvest. [5] Modern uses "Potemkin village" has also been used to describe the attempts of the government of the Soviet Union to fool foreign visitors. The government would take such visitors, who were often already sympathetic to socialism or Communism , to selected villages, factories, schools, stores, or neighborhoods and present them as if they were typical, rather than exceptional. Given the strict limitations on the movement of foreigners in the USSR, it was often impossible for these visitors to see any other examples. [6] A recent[ when? ] BBC series reported that in 1952 Doris Lessing , a British writer who has since won the Nobel Prize for Literature , was part of a delegation visiting the Soviet Union. Her memories of the trip are clear and unforgiving: "I was taken around and shown things as a ' useful idiot '... that's what my role was.

I cannot understand why I was so gullible." The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw visited the Soviet Union in 1931, and the (British-born) American journalist Walter Duranty served as the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times from 1922 through 1936. They mingled with political leaders, were escorted into the countryside by the secret police, and returned home to speak and write of "a land of hope" with "evils retreating before the spread of Communism". However as stories mounted of mass murder and starvation in parts of Russia and Ukraine, reporters such as Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge investigated and reported on "the creation of one enormous Belsen ". Duranty responded with an article in the New York Times headed "Story of the famine is bunk", and got an exclusive interview with Stalin . Duranty was awarded a Pulitzer Prize . [7] [8] Examples of Potemkin Villages A view of the North Korean village Kijong-dong .

The Nazi German Theresienstadt concentration camp , called "the Paradise Ghetto" in World War II , was designed as a concentration camp that could be shown to the Red Cross , but was really a Potemkin village: attractive at first, but deceptive and ultimately lethal, with high death rates from malnutrition and contagious diseases. It ultimately served as a way-station to Auschwitz-Birkenau . In present-day Tibet , the Chinese government has built numerous "modern resettlement villages" where native Tibetans , including former nomads , are housed and periodically 'showcased' to foreign journalists in highly-controlled visits, in order to propagate the idea that Chinese occupation is "good for Tibetans". More generally, Tibet in its entirety is seen as a 'Potemkin Village' by many independent observers. [9] Gijeong-dong , built by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) in the north half of the Korean Demilitarized Zone .

[10] It is an uninhabited village built at great expense during the 1950s in a propaganda effort to encourage South Korean defection and to house the North Korean soldiers manning the extensive network of artillery positions, fortifications and underground marshalling bunkers that are in the border zone. In 2010, 22 vacant houses in a blighted part of Cleveland, Ohio were disguised with fake doors and windows painted on the plywood panels used to close them up, so the houses look occupied. [11] A similar program has been undertaken in Chicago. [10] Following the Manchurian Incident , and China 's referral of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to the League of Nations in 1931, the League's representative was given a tour of the "truly Manchurian" parts of the region. It was meant to prove that the area was not under Japanese domination. Whether the farce succeeded is moot; Japan withdrew from the League the following year. [12] In 1982, Mayor Ed Koch of New York City covered the windows of abandoned buildings in the Bronx with decals with plants and Venetian blinds to hide the blight.

[13] Term used in legal system The term "Potemkin village" is also often used by judges, especially members of a multiple-judge panel who dissent from the majority's opinion on a particular matter, to describe an inaccurate or tortured interpretation and/or application of a particular legal doctrine to the specific facts at issue. Use of the term is meant to imply that the reasons espoused by the panel's majority in support of its decision are not based on accurate or sound law, and their restrictive application is merely a masquerade for the court's desire to avoid a difficult decision. Often, the dissent will attempt to reveal the majority's adherence to the restrictive principle at issue as being an inappropriate function for a court, reasoning that the decision transgresses the limits of traditional adjudication because the resolution of the case will effectively create an important and far-reaching policy decision, which the legislature would be the better equipped and more appropriate entity to address. For example, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey (1992), Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that " Roe v.

Wade stands as a sort of judicial Potemkin Village, which may be pointed out to passers-by as a monument to the importance of adhering to precedent." [14] Other uses Further information: Facade Construction or not, motorists and pedestrians in Bothell, Washington can enjoy a forest view Sometimes, instead of the full phrase, just "Potemkin" is used, as an adjective. For example, the use of a row of trees to screen a clearcut area from highway drivers has been called a "Potemkin Forest". The term "Potemkin Court" implies that the court's reason to exist is being called into question; it differs from a kangaroo court in which the court's standard of justice is being impugned. Many of the newly constructed base areas at ski resorts are referred to as Potemkin Villages. These create the illusion of a quaint mountain town, but are actually carefully planned theme shopping centers, hotels and restaurants designed for maximum revenue. Similarly, in The Geography of Nowhere, American writer James Howard Kunstler refers to contemporary suburban shopping centers as "Potemkin village shopping plazas".

[15] In fiction, The West Wing episode "Twenty Hours In America" (Season 4, Episode 1) had the character Josh Lyman quote president "Jed" Bartlet as saying "the challenge of running the country is too great for a Potemkin presidency..." Lyman also says in the episode "Freedonia" (Season 6, Episode 15) that his campaign staff should thank their "Potemkin advance team". In the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room , Enron 's trading floor, used to fool visiting analysts, is described as a "Potemkin Village". Traders were thought to be engaged in dealing with outside clients, but were in fact conversing with people in the same building and each other. The hardcore punk band Propagandhi released an album in 2005 called " Potemkin City Limits ". The cover depicts kids playing in a city which is drawn on the ground, a facade city. [16] Their 2009 album " Supporting Caste " has a song called "Potemkin City Limits", about the statue of Francis the pig, in Alberta, Canada.

[17] Alternative term In Russian, the term pokazukha (показуха) is also used for the idea of something done for effect. [18] It comes from the root "pokaz" - "to show". Both terms were and are closely connected to everyday reality, where prior to inspections and visits by superiors, the inspected/visited party not only tries to temporarily put the facility in line with every regulation, but also puts on a show using absurd means such as painting the grass to make it greener. See also

Question: What are 'Potemkin villages' which were purportedly erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Potemkin to impress Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787?
Answer: Fake settlements